Ticket Run for Opening of Diana’s Family Estate

Love her tender, love her true? Princessland is the place for you. Tickets went on sale Monday for the opening season at Althorp Park, the Spencer family estate two hours north of London where Diana, princess of Wales, is buried.

Trouble is, you probably can’t get there from here.

Visitors will be welcome at the rate of 2,500 per day only from July 1, Diana’s birthday, until Aug. 30, the day before the date of her death last year in a Paris traffic accident.

Call 011 44 1604 592020 round the clock--and good luck. The British busy signal is easily recognized.

At a pace of 500 calls an hour and accelerating, more than 10,000 tickets of a total summer availability of 152,500 went in the first eight hours.

Even beating the phone odds and paying the stiff ticket cost--around $50 for a family of four--you’ll get no closer to Diana’s grave than one protective lake and four black swans.

It’s all in a good cause, though, with proceeds above expenses, perhaps $3 million, pledged to the fund supporting charities favored by the world’s favorite princess.

There will be an outdoor memorial shrine for visitors wishing to lay flowers, and an indoor exhibition hall cum museum celebrating Diana’s life. “If Jackie O had a museum, that would be the sort of a profile we’re looking for,” said designer Rasshied Din, who is designing the exhibition space.

Tight crowd controls and reservation-only tickets are an attempt by Diana’s family to preserve an atmosphere and a tone respectful of her memory, the Spencer family says. “For those two months of the year, we can be sure that the park does retain its dignity and tranquillity,” said Shelley-Anne Claircourt, a family spokeswoman.

Would-be visitors take note: Six months from the inaugural, everything is still in the design stages.

At about $15.75 for an adult ticket, Althorp becomes one of Britain’s most expensive tourist attractions, costing marginally more than a tour of Buckingham Palace or the Tower of London.

But it is exceptional value, insists Claircourt. The stately Spencer family home contains some of Europe’s best 17th century portraiture in private hands and already draws 9,000 visitors a year. There is a landscaped garden and a half-mile path that circles the lake where Diana lies.

“Visitors can walk around the lake with its black swans and down to the water’s edge. The island is perhaps 20 yards away. Overall, a visit might take three to four hours,” Claircourt said. There will be a memorial marker visible on the island.

Last stop for visitors will be a stone 18th century Palladian stable block that once held the Spencer family’s 100 horses and housed their 40 grooms, and today still stores six old carriages amid unreconstructed stalls and mangers.

The stable, an architectural treasure with two stone porticoes and a patterned brick floor, needs repairs, said Giles Quarme, architect of the stable-museum. “We’ll be restoring it to accommodate exhibition space, a restaurant, a shop, restrooms and other things,” Quarme said.

What to display is still being discussed within Diana’s family, said Din, but there will probably be examples of her clothes and dresses, childhood objects, diaries, letters and perhaps books she particularly liked. “We want an atmosphere that will be very contemporary and modern, reflecting the woman it honors. We want to celebrate her life with something fresh that is exciting, a pleasure to visit. The last thing we want is a mausoleum,” Din said.

Like the exhibits, other aspects of the memorial are still fluid. While nearby property values soar, roads are being rerouted to avoid traffic snarls created by would-be visitors who have no tickets and no prospects of getting any.

“If there seems to be public demand for us to open for more than two months, we will consider extending the opening in years to come,” Claircourt said.

All things considered, it may be smarter to let your Web browser do the walking this first time around for her family’s salute to Diana at https://www.althorp-house.co.uk